Chapter XVThe Drive Toward Intramuros

Iwabuchi Entrapped

Although patently determined at the
end of January to defend Manila to the
last, Admiral Iwabuchi apparently wavered
in his resolution during the week
or so following the arrival of the first
American troops in the city.1
On the
morning of 9 February, two days after
the 37th Division began crossing the
Pasig, the admiral decided that his position
in the Manila area had deteriorated
so rapidly and completely that he should
devote some attention to evacuating his
remaining forces. Accordingly, he moved
his headquarters to Fort McKinley, evidently
planning to direct a withdrawal
from that relatively safe vantage point.
This transfer precipitated a series of incidents
that vividly illustrates the anomalies
of the Japanese command structure
in the metropolitan area.

About the same time that Iwabuchi
moved to Fort McKinley, the first definite
information about the course of the
battle in Manila reached General Yokoyama's
Shimbu Group headquarters. The
Shimbu commander immediately began
planning a counterattack, the multiple
aims and complicated preparation of
which suggest that Yokoyama had so
little information that he could not
make up his mind quite what he wanted
to, or could, accomplish.

Estimating the strength of the Americans
in the Manila area at little more
than a regiment, General Yokoyama apparently
felt that he had a good opportunity
to cut off and isolate the Allied
force. Conversely, he was also interested
in getting the Manila Naval Defense
Force out of the city quickly, either by
opening a line of retreat or by having
Iwabuchi co-ordinate a breakthrough effort
with a Shimbu Group counterattack,
scheduled for the night of 16-17 February.
Not knowing how far the situation
in Manila had deteriorated--communications
were faulty and Admiral
Iwabuchi had supplied Yokoyama with
little information--Yokoyama at first directed
the Manila Naval Defense Force
to hold fast. The question of a general
withdrawal, he told Iwabuchi, would be
held in abeyance pending the outcome
of the counterattack.

There is no indication that the Shimbu
Group commander intended to reinforce
or retake Manila. Rather, his primary
interest was to gain time for the Shimbu
Group to strengthen its defenses north
and northeast of the city and to move
more supplies out of the city to its

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mountain strongholds, simultaneously
creating a good opportunity for the
Manila Naval Defense Force to withdraw
intact.

Such was the state of communications
between Iwabuchi and Yokoyama that
Iwabuchi had decided to return to Manila
before he received any word of the
counterattack plans. When Admiral
Iwabuchi left Manila he had placed Colonel
Noguchi, the Northern Force commander,
in control of all troops
remaining within the city limits. Noguchi
found it impossible to exercise effective
control over the naval elements of his
command and asked that a senior naval
officer return to the city. Iwabuchi, who
now feared that Fort McKinley might
fall to the Americans before the defenses
within the city, himself felt compelled
to return, a step he took on the morning
of 11 February.

On or about 13 February, General
Yokoyama, having received more information,
decided that the situation in
Manila was beyond repair, and directed
Iwabuchi to return to Fort McKinley
and start withdrawing his troops immediately,
without awaiting the Shimbu
Group counterattack. Two days later
General Yamashita, from his Baguio
command post 125 miles to the north,
stepped into the picture. Censuring
General Yokoyama, the 14th Area Army
commander first demanded to know why
Admiral Iwabuchi had been permitted
to return to the city and second directed
Yokoyama to get all troops out of
Manila immediately.

Not until the morning of 17 February
did Iwabuchi receive Yokoyama's directive
of the 13th and Yamashita's
orders of the 15th. By those dates XIV
Corps had cut all Japanese routes of
withdrawal, a fact that was readily apparent
to Admiral Iwabuchi. As a result,
he made no attempt to get any troops
out of the city under the cover of the
Shimbu Group's counterattack, which
was just as well, since that effort was
unsuccessful.

Yokoyama had planned to counterattack
with two columns. On the north, a
force composed of two battalions of the
31st Infantry, 8th Division, and two provisional
infantry battalions from the
105th Division was to strike across the
Marikina River from the center of the
Shimbu Group's defenses, aiming at
Novaliches Dam and Route 3 north of
Manila.2
The southern prong, consisting
of three provisional infantry battalions
of the Kobayashi Force--formerly the
Army's Manila Defense Force--were to
drive across the Marikina toward the
Balara Water Filters and establish contact
with the northern wing in the
vicinity of Grace Park.

The 112th Cavalry RCT, which had
replaced the 12th Cavalry along the 1st
Cavalry Division's line of communications,
broke up the northern wing's
counterattack between 15 and 18 February.
In the Novaliches-Novaliches
Dam area, and in a series of skirmishes
further west and northwest, the 112th
Cavalry RCT dispatched some 300 Japanese,
losing only 2 men killed and 32
wounded. Un-co-ordinated from the
start, the northern counterattack turned
into a shambles, and the northern attack

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force withdrew in a disorganized manner
before it accomplished anything.

The Kobayashi Force's effort was
turned back on the morning of the 16th,
when American artillery caught this
southern wing as it attempted to cross
the Marikina River. During the next
three days all Japanese attacks were piecemeal
in nature and were thrown back
with little difficulty by the 7th and 8th
Cavalry Regiments, operating east and
northeast of Manila. By 19 February,
when the southern counterattack force
also withdrew, the 2d Cavalry Brigade
and support artillery had killed about
650 Japanese in the area west of the
Marikina from Novaliches Dam south to
the Pasig. The brigade lost about 15
men killed and 50 wounded.

The fact that the counterattack was
completely unsuccessful in either cutting
the XIV Corps lines of communications
or opening a route of withdrawal for the
Manila Naval Defense Force does not
seem to have greatly concerned or surprised
General Yokoyama. He did not
have much hope of success from the beginning,
and, indeed, his ardor for the
venture was undoubtedly dampened by
Admiral Iwabuchi's adamant attitude
about making any further attempt to
withdraw from the city, an attitude the
admiral made amply clear on the morning
of the 17th, the very day that the
counterattack was to have reached its
peak of penetration.

That morning Iwabuchi, truthfully
enough, informed Yokoyama that withdrawal
of the bulk of his forces from
Manila was no longer possible. He went
on to say that he still considered the defense
of Manila to be of utmost importance
and that he could not continue
organized operations in the city should
he attempt to move his headquarters or
any other portion of his forces out.
Again on 19 and 21 February Yokoyama
directed Iwabuchi to withdraw. Iwabuchi
was unmoved, replying that withdrawal
would result in quick annihilation
of the forces making the attempt, whereas
continued resistance within the city
would result in heavy losses to the attacking
American forces. General Yokoyama
suggested that Iwabuchi undertake night
withdrawals by infiltrating small groups
of men through the American lines.
Past experience throughout the Pacific
war, the Shimbu Group commander
went on, had proven the feasibility of
such undertakings. There was no recorded
answer to this message, and on
23 February all communication between
the Shimbu Group and the Manila Naval
Defense Force ceased. Admiral Iwabuchi
had made his bed, and he was to die
in it.

Meanwhile, the fighting within Manila
had raged unabated as XIV Corps
compressed the Japanese into an ever
decreasing area. Outside, the 11th Airborne
Division had cut off the Southern
Force's Abe Battalion on high ground at
Mabato Point, on the northwest shore
of Laguna de Bay. There, between 14
and 18 February, a battalion-sized guerrilla
force under Maj. John D. Vanderpool,
a special agent sent to Luzon by
GHQ SWPA in October 1944, contained
the Japanese unit.3
From 18 through 23
February an 11th Airborne Division task
force, composed of three infantry battalions
closely supported by artillery, tank
destroyers, and Marine Corps SBD's,
besieged the Abe Battalion. In this final

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action the Japanese unit lost about 750
men killed; the 11th Airborne Division
lost less than 10 men killed and 50
wounded--the burden of the attack had
been borne principally by the artillery
and air support elements. The Abe Battalion's
final stand made no tactical sense,
and at least until 14 February the unit
could have escaped northeastward
practically unmolested.4

The 4th Naval Battalion, cut off at
Fort McKinley when the 5th and 12th
Cavalry Regiments pushed to Manila
Bay, played the game a bit more shrewdly.
From 13 through 19 February elements
of the 11th Airborne Division, coming
northeast from the Nichols Field area,
and troops of the 1st Cavalry Brigade,
moving east along the south bank of the
Pasig River, cleared all the approaches to
Fort McKinley in a series of patrol actions.
When, on the 19th, troops of the
11th Airborne and elements of the 1st
Cavalry Division completed the occupation
of the Fort McKinley area, they
found that the bulk of the Japanese had
fled. Whether by Iwabuchi's authority
or not, the 4th Naval Battalion, together
with remnants of the 3d Naval Battalion
from Nichols Field, had withdrawn eastward
toward the Shimbu Group's main
defenses during the night of 17-18 February.
Some 300 survivors of the 3d
Naval Battalion thus escaped, while the
4th probably managed to evacuate about
1,000 men of its original strength of
nearly 1,400.5

Inside the city, as of 12 February, Admiral
Iwabuchi still had under his control
his Central Force (1st and 2d Naval
Battalions), the Headquarters Sector
Unit, the 5th Naval Battalion, the Northern
Force's 3d Provisional Infantry Battalion
and service units, remnants of
Colonel Noguchi's 2d Provisional Infantry
Battalion, and, finally, the many
miscellaneous naval "attached units."
The 37th Division had decimated the
1st Naval Battalion at Provisor Island
and during the fighting through Paco
and Pandacan Districts; the 2d Provisional
Infantry Battalion had lost heavily
in action against the 1st Cavalry and
37th Divisions north of the Pasig; the
2d Naval Battalion, originally holding
the extreme southern section of the city,
had lost considerable strength to the 1st
Cavalry Brigade and the 11th Airborne
Division; all the rest of the Japanese
units had suffered losses from American
artillery and mortar fire. The total
strength now available to Iwabuchi
within Manila probably numbered no
more than 6,000 troops.

Perhaps more serious, from Iwabuchi's
point of view, were the Japanese heavy
weapons losses. By 12 February XIV
Corps had destroyed almost all his artillery.
Carefully laid American artillery
and mortar fire was rapidly knocking out
his remaining mortars as well as all machine
guns except for those emplaced
well within fortified buildings. Soon
Iwabuchi's men would be reduced to

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fighting principally with light machine
guns, rifles, and hand grenades. Even so,
they were to demonstrate that they were
capable of conducting a most tenacious
and fanatic defense.

The Battles at the Strongpoints

A Forecast

After 12 February XIV Corps troops
found themselves in a steady war of attrition.
Street-to-street, building-to-building,
and room-to-room fighting
characterized each day's activity. Progress
was sometimes measured only in
feet; many days saw no progress at all.
The fighting became really "dirty." The
Japanese, looking forward only to death,
started committing all sorts of excesses,
both against the city itself and against
Filipinos unlucky enough to remain
under Japanese control. As time went
on, Japanese command disintegrated.
Then, viciousness became uncontrolled
and uncontrollable; horror mounted
upon horror. The men of the 37th Infantry
Division and the 1st Cavalry Division
witnessed the rape, sack, pillage, and
destruction of a large part of Manila
and became reluctant parties to much
of the destruction.

Although XIV Corps placed heavy dependence
upon artillery, tank, tank destroyer,
mortar, and bazooka fire for all
advances, cleaning out individual buildings
ultimately fell to individual riflemen.
To accomplish this work, the
infantry brought to fruition a system
initiated north of the Pasig River. Small
units worked their way from one building
to the next, usually trying to secure
the roof and top floor first, often by
coming through the upper floors of an
adjoining structure. Using stairways as
axes of advance, lines of supply, and
routes of evacuation, troops then began
working their way down through the
building. For the most part, squads
broke up into small assault teams, one
holding entrances and perhaps the
ground floor--when that was where entrance
had been gained--while the other
fought through the building. In many
cases, where the Japanese blocked stairways
and corridors, the American troops
found it necessary to chop or blow holes
through walls and floors. Under such
circumstances, hand grenades, flame
throwers, and demolitions usually proved
requisites to progress.6

Casualties were seldom high on any
one day. For example, on 12 February
the 129th Infantry, operating along the
south bank of the Pasig in the area near
Provisor Island, was held to gains of 150
yards at the cost of 5 men killed and 28
wounded. Low as these casualty figures
were for a regimental attack, the attrition--over 90 percent of it occurring
among the front-line riflemen--depleted
the infantry companies' effective fighting
strength at an alarming rate.

Each infantry and cavalry regiment
engaged south of the Pasig found a particular
group of buildings to be a focal
point of Japanese resistance. While by
12 February XIV Corps knew that the
final Japanese stand would be made in
Intramuros and the government buildings
ringing the Walled City from the
east around to the south, progress toward
Intramuros would be held up for days as
each regiment concentrated its efforts on

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Map 6
The Capture of Manila: The Drive Toward Intramuros
13-22 February 1945

--276--

eliminating the particular strongpoints
to its front. There was, of course, fighting
practically every step of the way west
from Estero de Paco and north from
Pasay suburb in addition to the battles
at the strongpoints. This other fighting
was, however, often without definite pattern--it was laborious, costly, and time
consuming, and no single narrative could
follow it in detail. It was also usually
only incidental to the battles taking
place at the more fanatically defended
strongpoints. In brief, the action at the
strongpoints decided the issue during the
drive toward Intramuros.

Harrison Park to the Manila Hotel

When the 5th and 12th Cavalry Regiments
reached Manila Bay in Pasay suburb
on 12 February, completing the
encirclement of Admiral Iwabuchi's
forces, they immediately turned north
toward the city limits.7
(Map 6) The first
known Japanese strongpoint in this area
was located at Harrison Park and at
Rizal Memorial Stadium and associated
Olympic Games facilities near the bay
front just inside the city limits. The
park-stadium complex extended from
the bay east 1,200 yards to Taft Avenue
and north from Vito Cruz Street--marking
the city limits--some 700 yards to
Harrison Boulevard, the 1st Cavalry
Division-37th Division boundary. On
the bay front lay the Manila Yacht Club
and the ruins of Fort Abad, an old Spanish
structure. Harrison Park, a generally
open area surrounded by tree-lined roadways,
was next inland. East of the south
end of the park lay a baseball stadium
similar to any of the smaller "big league"
parks in the United States. Due north
and adjacent to the ball field was Rizal
Stadium, built for Olympic track and
field events and including, inter alia, a
two-story, covered, concrete grandstand.
Still further east, near the banks of a
small stream, was an indoor coliseum,
tennis court, and a swimming pool, reading
south to north. Beyond the small
stream and facing on Taft Avenue lay
the large, three-story concrete building
of La Salle University. The 2d Naval
Battalion and various attached provisional
units defended all these buildings.

The 12th Cavalry and the 2d Squadron,
5th Cavalry, took two days to fight
their way north through Pasay suburb to
Vito Cruz Street, rooting out scattered
groups of Japanese who had holed up in
homes throughout the suburb.8
During
the attack, the 2d Squadron of the 12th
Cavalry extended its right flank across
Taft Avenue to Santa Escolastica College,
two blocks southeast of La Salle
University.

On the morning of 15 February, after
an hour of preparatory fire by one battalion
of 105-mm. howitzers and a second

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RIZAL BASEBALL STADIUM

of 155-mm. howitzers, the 12th Cavalry
forced its way into La Salle University
and the Japanese Club, just to the
south of the university on the same side
of Taft Avenue. The regiment also
made an unsuccessful attempt to get into
Rizal Stadium. Meanwhile, the 5th
Cavalry's squadron drove north along the
bay front, forcing Japanese defenders
caught in the open at Harrison Park
into the stadium. Late in the afternoon
cavalrymen broke into both the baseball
park and the stadium from the east but
were forced out at dusk by Japanese
machine gun, rifle, and mortar fire.

The 5th Cavalry cleared the baseball
grounds on 16 February after three
tanks, having blasted and battered their
way through a cement wall on the east
side of the park, got into the playing
field to support the cavalrymen inside.
Resistance came from heavy bunkers
constructed all over the diamond, most
of them located in left field and in left
center, and from sandbagged positions
under the grandstand beyond the third
base-left field foul line. Flame throwers
and demolitions overcame the last resistance,
and by 1630 the 5th Cavalry had
finished the job. Meanwhile, elements
of the 12th Cavalry had cleaned out the
coliseum, Rizal Stadium, and the ruins

--278--

of Fort Abad. The two units finished
mopping up during the 18th.

In the fighting in the Harrison Park-Rizal Stadium-La Salle University area,
the 5th and 12th Cavalry Regiments lost
approximately 40 men killed and 315
wounded.9
The 2d Naval Battalion, destroyed
as an effective combat force, lost
probably 750 men killed, the remnants
fleeing northward to join units fighting
against elements of the 37th Division.
The success at the park-stadium area
paved the way for further advances north
along the bay front, and the 12th Cavalry
had begun preparations for just such
advances while it was mopping up.

On 16 February, in the midst of the
fighting in the stadium area, the 1st
Cavalry Brigade (less the 2d Squadron,
12th Cavalry) passed to the control of
the 37th Division. General Beightler
directed the brigade to secure all the
ground still in Japanese hands from
Harrison Park north to Isaac Peral
Street--fifteen blocks and 2,000 yards
north of Harrison Boulevard--and between
the bay shore and Taft Avenue.
The 5th Cavalry, under this program,
was to relieve the 148th Infantry, 37th
Division, at another strongpoint, while
the 12th Cavalry (less 2d Squadron) was
to make the attack north along the bay
front. The 12th's first objective was the
prewar office and residence of the U.S.
High Commissioner to the Philippines,
lying on the bay at the western end of
Padre Faura Street, three blocks short of
Isaac Peral.10

The 1st Squadron, 12th Cavalry,
began its drive northward at 1100 on 19
February, opposed by considerable rifle,
machine gun, and 20-mm. machine cannon
fire from the High Commissioner's
residence and from private clubs and
apartment buildings north and northeast
thereof. With close support of medium
tanks, the squadron's right flank reached
Padre Faura Street by dusk, leaving the
residence and grounds in Japanese hands.
During the day a Chinese guerrilla informant--who claimed that his name
was Charlie Chan--told the 12th Cavalry
to expect stiff opposition at the Army-Navy and Elks Clubs, lying between
Isaac Peral and the next street north, San
Luis.11
The units also expected opposition
from apartments and hotels across
Dewey Boulevard east of the clubs. The
two club buildings had originally been
garrisoned by Admiral Iwabuchi's Headquarters
Sector Unit, and the Manila
Naval Defense Force commander had
apparently used the Army-Navy Club as
his command post for some time. Apartments
and hotels along the east side of
Dewey Boulevard were probably defended
by elements of Headquarters
Battalion and some of the provisional
attached units.

Behind close artillery support, the
cavalry squadron attacked early on 20
February and by 0815 had overrun the
last resistance in the High Commissioner's
residence and on the surrounding
grounds. The impetus of the attack carried
the squadron on through the Army-
Navy and Elks Clubs and up to San Luis
Street and also through most of the apartments,
hotels, and private homes lying
on the east side of Dewey Boulevard

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from Padre Faura north to San Luis.
Only 30 Japanese were killed in this
once-important Manila Naval Defense
Force command post area; the rest had
fled into Intramuros or been used as reinforcements
elsewhere. The 1st Squadron,
12th Cavalry, lost 3 men killed and
19 wounded during the day, almost the
exact ratio of casualties being incurred
by other U.S. units fighting throughout
Manila.

Now facing the cavalrymen across San
Luis Street were the wide, open park
areas of New Luneta, Burnham Green,
Old Luneta, and the western portion of
Wallace Field, reading from the bay inland.
About 500 yards north across Burnham
Green loomed the five-story concrete
bulk of the Manila Hotel, and north of
Old Luneta and Wallace Field lay Intramuros.
The South Port Area lay just
northwest of the Manila Hotel, the next
objective. In preparation for the attack
on the hotel, the 82d Field Artillery Battalion
intermittently shelled the building
and surrounding grounds throughout
the night. A patrol of Troop B dug in
along the north edge of Burnham Green
to prevent Japanese in the hotel from
breaking out to reoccupy abandoned
bunkers in the open park area.

With artillery support and the aid of
two 105-mm. self-propelled mounts and
a platoon of medium tanks, the 1st
Squadron dashed into the hotel on the
morning of 21 February. As was the case
in other large buildings throughout the
city, the hotel contained a series of interior
strongpoints, the basement and
underground passages being especially
strongly held. Nevertheless, the hotel's
eastern, or old, wing was secured practically
intact by midafternoon. Some
Japanese still defended the basement
and the new (west) wing, but the cavalrymen
cleaned them out the next day.
The new wing, including a penthouse
where General MacArthur had made his
prewar home, was gutted during the
fight, and the general's penthouse was
demolished.12

The New Police Station

Just as one Japanese strongpoint was
located on the left (west) of the American
forces fighting in Manila, so there
was another blocking the road to Intramuros
on the American right, in the
sector of the 129th Infantry, which had
completed the reduction of Provisor
Island on 12 February. The 129th's particular
bête noire was a block of buildings
bounded on the north by an unnamed
east-west extension of the Estero
Provisor, on the east by Marques de
Comillas Street, on the south by Isaac
Peral Street (here the boundary between
the 129th and 148th Infantry Regiments),
and on the west by San Marcelino
Street--the whole area being
about 200 yards wide east to west and
400 yards long. The focal point of Japanese
resistance in this area was the New
Police Station, located on the northwest
corner of San Marcelino and Isaac Peral
Streets. At the northeast corner was a
three-story concrete shoe factory, north
of which, covering the block between
San Marcelino and Marques de Comillas,
was the Manila Club. North of the club
were the buildings of Santa Teresita
College, and west of the college, across

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MANILA HOTEL IN RUINS

San Marcelino, lay San Pablo Church
and attached convent. All approaches to
these buildings lay across open ground
and were covered by grazing machine
gun fire. The Japanese had strong defenses
both inside and outside each
building and covered each with mutually
supporting fire. The New Police
Station, two stories of reinforced concrete
and a large basement, featured
inside and outside bunkers, in both of
which machine gunners and riflemen
holed up. The 129th Infantry, which
had previously seen action at Bougainville
and against the Kembu Group, and
which subsequently had a rough time
against the Shobu Group in northern
Luzon, later characterized the combined
collection of obstacles in the New Police
Station area as the most formidable the
regiment encountered during the war.13
The realization that the strongpoint was
well defended was no comfort to the
129th Infantry, since until the regiment
cleared the area neither its left nor the
148th Infantry's right could make any
progress. The 37th Division, moreover,

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could not simply contain and bypass the
strongpoint, for to do so would produce
a deep and dangerous salient in the division
lines as the drive toward Intramuros
progressed.

While the 129th Infantry's right--the
2d Battalion--had been completing the
reduction of Japanese defenses on Provisor
Island, the left and center, on 10
and 11 February, had moved westward
in the area between Isaac Peral Street
and Provisor Island generally up to the
line of Marques de Comillas Street.
During the 12th the 2d Battalion crossed
to the mainland from the west shore of
Provisor Island but despite close and
plentiful artillery support could make
scarcely 150 yards westward along the
south bank of the Pasig. On the same
day the rest of the regiment did little
more than straighten out its lines along
Marques de Comillas. Attacks on the
New Police Station and the Manila Club
on 13 February were unsuccessful. Shells
of supporting 155-mm. howitzers had
little effect on the two buildings, and
even point-blank fire from a tank destroyer's
high-velocity 76-mm. gun and
105-mm. high-explosive shells from Cannon
Company's self-propelled mounts
did little to reduce the volume of
Japanese fire.

On the morning of the 14th, Company
A, 754th Tank Battalion, came up
to reinforce the 129th Infantry.14
Behind
close support from the tanks, Company
B, 129th Infantry, gained access to
the Manila Club; Company A, 129th
Infantry, entered windows on the first
floor of the New Police Station; and a
platoon of Company C made its way into
the police station's basement. Having
attacked at first light, Company A had
surprised the Japanese before they had
reoccupied positions vacated during the
American preassault artillery and tank
bombardment, but the Japanese soon
recovered and put up a strong fight
through the corridors and rooms of the
police station's first floor. Some extent
of the strength and nature of the defenses
is indicated by the fact that the 129th
Infantry destroyed three sandbagged machine
gun positions in one room alone.

Progress through the basement and
first floor was slow but satisfactory until
the Japanese started dropping hand grenades
through holes chopped in the
second story's floor. With stairways destroyed
or too well defended to permit
infantry assault, Company A found no
way to counter the Japanese tactics--a
good example of why the troops usually
tried to secure the top story of a defended
building first. Evacuation proved
necessary, and by dusk the Company A
and C elements were back along Marques
de Comillas Street, Company B holding
within the Manila Club.

On 15 and 16 February only probing
attacks were made at the New Police
Station, the shoe factory, and Santa
Teresita College, while tanks, TD's, M7
SPM's, and 105-mm. artillery kept up a
steady fire against all buildings still in
Japanese hands. Even these probing actions
cost the 1st Battalion, 129th Infantry,
16 men killed and 58 wounded.
During the morning of the 17th the battalion
secured the shattered shoe factory
and entered Santa Teresita College, but
its hold at the college, tenuous from the
beginning, was given up as the 1st Battalion,
145th Infantry, moved into the
area to relieve the 129th. The New Police

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Station, still the major stronghold,
was still firmly in Japanese hands when
the 129th Infantry left.

The 1st Battalion, 145th Infantry,
took up the attack about 1015 on the
18th behind hundreds of rounds of preparatory
fire from tanks and M7's.15
The
battalion cleared the shoe factory and
Santa Teresita College for good, and
once more gained a foothold inside the
New Police Station. Nevertheless, opposition
remained strong all through
the interior of the police station, while
every movement of men past holes
blown in the northwest walls by supporting
artillery brought down Japanese machine
gun and rifle fire from San Pablo
Church, two blocks to the north. The
145th Infantry, like the 129th before it,
found its grip on the New Police Station
untenable and withdrew during
the afternoon.

Throughout the morning of 19 February
the police station and the church
were bombarded by the 75-mm. guns of
a platoon of Sherman M3 tanks, a platoon
of M4 tanks mounting 105-mm.
howitzers, a platoon of 105-mm. SPM's,
and most of a 105-mm. field artillery
battalion. During the afternoon Company
B, 145th Infantry, fought its way
into the east wing of the police station,
while other troops cleaned out San Pablo
Church and the adjoining convent
against suddenly diminished opposition.
The hold on the New Police Station--the Japanese still defended the west
wing--again proved untenable and
again the troops had to withdraw. Finally,
after more artillery and tank fire
had almost demolished the building,
Company C, 145th Infantry, secured the
ruins on 20 February.

The reduction of the New Police
Station strongpoint and the nearby defended
buildings had consumed eight
full days of heavy fighting. The seizure
of the police station building alone had
cost the 37th Division approximately
25 men killed and 80 wounded, while
the 754th Tank Battalion lost three mediums
in front of the structure. The
37th Division could make no accurate
estimate of Japanese casualties since the
Japanese, who still controlled the ground
to the west, had been able to reinforce
and evacuate at will. During the fight the
37th Division and its supporting units
had demolished the New Police Station,
virtually destroyed the shoe factory, and
damaged severely San Pablo Church and
the Manila Club. Having reduced the
strongpoint, the 37th Division's center
was now able to resume its advance toward
Intramuros. Meanwhile, its right
and its left had been engaged at other
centers of resistance blocking the
approaches to the final objective.

The City Hall and the General
Post Office

Each strongpoint of the Japanese
defenses and each building within each
strongpoint presented peculiar problems,
and the attacking infantry, while operating
within a general pattern, had to
devise special offensive variations for
each. Such was the case at the General
Post Office, located near the south end of
Jones Bridge, and at the City Hall, a few
blocks south along Padre Burgos Street

--283--

NEW POLICE STATION

from the post office and across Padre
Burgos from the filled moat along the
east side of Intramuros. The 129th Infantry
had cleared buildings along the
south bank of the Pasig from Provisor
Island to within 300 yards of Quezon
Bridge and north of the New Police
Station strongpoint to positions a block
from the City Hall. The 1st Battalion,
145th Infantry, relieved units of the
129th along the Pasig on 17 February,
while the 3d Battalion, 145th, took over
in the vicinity of the City Hall on the
19th.

The 81-mm. mortars of the 129th Infantry
had once set afire the four-story
concrete City Hall, but the fire had done
little damage and had failed to drive
out the Japanese defenders who numbered,
as of 20 February, approximately
200 men. On the 20th the 105-mm.
SPM's of Cannon Company, 145th Infantry,
aided by a single 155-mm. howitzer,
blew a hole in the building's east
wall through which a platoon of the
145th Infantry, covered by machine gun
and rifle fire as it dashed across intervening
open ground, gained access. Japanese
fire forced the platoon out almost
as fast as it had entered. The next day
all of Company I, 145th Infantry, got
into the City Hall after SPM's and TD's
had knocked down the outer walls of
the east wing. Again the hold proved
untenable. On the morning of 22 February
tanks, TD's, SPM's, and 155-mm.
howitzers laid point-blank fire against
the east wing, pulverizing it, while 105-mm. howitzers, 4.2-inch mortars, and
81-mm. mortars plastered the roof and
upper floors with indirect fire.

Company I re-entered the City Hall
about 0900 on the 22d. Using submachine
guns, bazookas, flame throwers,
demolitions, and hand grenades, the
company fought its way through the

--284--

sound part of the structure room by
room and overcame most of the resistance
by 1500, but 20-odd Japanese held
out in a first floor room. Since they
showed no inclination to surrender--although invited to do so--Company I
blew holes through the ceiling from
above and, sticking the business end of
flame throwers through the holes, summarily
ended the fight. Removing 206
Japanese bodies from the City Hall, the
145th Infantry also quickly cleared the
rubble from the west wing, where it set
up machine gun positions in windows to
support the assault on Intramuros.16

The fight for the General Post Office,
conducted simultaneously with that for
the City Hall, was especially difficult
because of the construction of the building
and the nature of the interior defenses.
A large, five-story structure of
earthquake-proof, heavily reinforced concrete,
the Post Office was practically impervious
to direct artillery, tank, and
tank destroyer fire. The interior was so
compartmented by strong partitions that
even a 155-mm. shell going directly
through a window did relatively little
damage inside. The Japanese had heavily
barricaded all rooms and corridors,
had protected their machine gunners
and riflemen with fortifications seven
feet high and ten sandbags thick, had
strung barbed wire throughout, and
even had hauled a 105-mm. artillery
piece up to the second floor. The building
was practically impregnable to anything
except prolonged, heavy air and
artillery bombardment, and why the
Japanese made no greater effort to hold
the structure is a mystery, especially
since it blocked the northeastern approaches
to Intramuros and was connected
to the Walled City by a trench
and tunnel system. Despite these connections,
the original garrison of the
Post Office received few reinforcements
during the fighting and, manifestly under
orders to hold out to the death, was
gradually whittled away by American
artillery bombardment and infantry
assaults.

For three days XIV Corps and 37th
Division Artillery pounded the Post
Office, but each time troops of the 1st
Battalion, 145th Infantry, attempted to
enter the Japanese drove them out. Finally,
on the morning of 22 February,
elements of the 1st Battalion gained a
secure foothold, entering through a second
story window. The Japanese who
were still alive soon retreated into the
large, dark basement, where the 145th
Infantry's troops finished off organized
resistance on the 23d. Nothing spectacular
occurred--the action was just another
dirty job of gradually overcoming fanatic
resistance, a process with which the infantry
of the 37th Division was by now
all too thoroughly accustomed.17

The Hospital and the University

The focal point of Japanese resistance
in the 148th Infantry's zone was the area
covered by the Philippine General Hospital
and the University of the Philippines.18
The hospital-university complex

--285--

stretched about 1,000 yards south from
Isaac Peral Street along the west side of
Taft Avenue to Herran Street. The hospital
and associated buildings extended
west along the north side of Herran
about 550 yards to Dakota Avenue
while, about midway between Isaac Peral
and Herran, Padre Faura Street separated
the hospital and the university
grounds.

Fortified in violation of the Geneva
Convention--Japan, like the United
States, was not a signatory power, but
both had agreed to abide by the convention's
rules--the hospital buildings, all
of reinforced concrete, were clearly
marked by large red crosses on their
roofs, and they contained many Filipino
patients who were, in effect, held hostage
by the Japanese. XIV Corps had initially
prohibited artillery fire on the
buildings, but lifted the restriction on
12 February when the 148th Infantry
discovered that the hospital was defended.
The presence of the civilian
patients did not become known for
another two or three days.

On 13 February the 148th Infantry,
having fought every step of the way
from the Estero de Paco, began to reach
Taft Avenue and get into position for
an attack on the hospital. On that day
the left flank extended along Taft from
Herran south four blocks to Harrison
Boulevard, the 148th Infantry-12th Cavalry
boundary. The infantry's extreme
right was held up about three blocks
short of Taft Avenue, unable to advance
until the 129th and 145th Infantry overran
the New Police Station strongpoint.
By evening the center and most of the
right flank elements had learned the
hard way that the Japanese had all the
east-west streets east of Taft Avenue covered
by automatic weapons emplaced in
the hospital and university buildings.
The 148th could not employ these streets
as approaches to the objectives, and the
regiment accordingly prepared to assault
via the buildings and back yards on the
east side of Taft.

On 14 February the 2d Battalion,
148th Infantry, trying to push across
Taft Avenue, found that the Japanese
had so arranged their defenses that cross
fires covered all approaches to the hospital
and university buildings. The
defenders had dug well-constructed machine
gun emplacements into the foundations
of most of the buildings; inside
they had sandbagged positions on the
first floors; lastly, Japanese riflemen and
machine gunners were stationed at the
windows of upper stories to good advantage.
The Japanese, in brief, stopped
the American battalion with mortar,
machine gun, and rifle fire from the Science
Building and adjacent structures
at the northwest corner of Taft and
Herran, from the main hospital buildings
on the west side of Taft between
California and Oregon, and from the
Nurses' Dormitory at the northwest
corner of Taft and Isaac Peral. On the
left the 3d Battalion, pushing west across
Taft Avenue south of Herran Street, had
intended to advance on to Manila Bay,
but halted, lest it become cut off, when
the rest of the regiment stopped.

On the 14th, at the cost of 22 killed
and 29 wounded, the 148th Infantry
again could make only negligible gains.
Indeed, the progress the regiment made
during the 14th had depended largely
upon heavy artillery and mortar support.
The 140th Field Artillery fired
2,091 rounds of high-explosive 105-mm.
ammunition, and 4.2-inch mortars of

--286--

the 82d Chemical Mortar Battalion expended
1,101 rounds of high explosive
and 264 rounds of white phosphorus.19
The white phosphorus, setting some fires
in a residential district south of the hospital,
helped the advance of the 3d
Battalion, but neither this nor the high-explosive
shells appreciably decreased
the scale of Japanese fire from the hospital
and university.

On 15 February the 3d Battalion
reached Manila Bay via Herran Street--before the 12th Cavalry was that far
north--and then wheeled right to assault
the hospital from the south. That day
the 2d Battalion, in the center, was again
unable to make any gains westward
across Taft Avenue, but on the 16th had
limited success in a general assault
against the main hospital buildings, the
Science Building (at the northwest corner
of Taft and Herran), the Medical
School (just west of the Science Building),
and the Nurses' Dormitory. The
Nurses' Dormitory, dominating the
northern approaches to the university
buildings, actually lay in the 129th Infantry's
zone, but the 148th attacked the
dormitory because the 129th was still
held up at the New Police Station.

By afternoon of the 16th the 148th
Infantry had learned that some Filipino
civilians were in the hospital. Making
every possible effort to protect the civilian
patients, the 2d Battalion, 148th Infantry,
which had to direct the fire of
tanks, tank destroyers, and self-propelled
mounts against every structure in its
path in order to gain any ground at all,
limited its support fires at the hospital to
the foundation defenses insofar as practicable.
With the aid of the close support
fires, the battalion grabbed and held
a foothold in the Nurses' Dormitory after
bitter room-to-room fighting. Further
south, other troops, still unable to reach
the Medical School, had to give up a
tenuous hold in the Science Building
when most of the 2d Battalion withdrew
to the east side of Taft Avenue for the
night. The cost of the disappointing
gains was 5 men killed and 40 wounded--the attrition continued.

During 17 February, with the aid of
support fires from the 1st Battalion, now
on the south side of Herran Street, the
2d Battalion smashed its way into the
two most easterly of the hospital's four
wings and overran the last resistance in
the Nurses' Dormitory and the Science
Building. The advance might have gone
faster had it not been necessary to evacuate
patients and other Filipino civilians
from the hospital. By dusk over 2,000
civilians had come out of the buildings;
the 148th Infantry conducted 5,000 more
to safety that night. At the end of the
17th the 148th had overcome almost all
opposition except that at the Medical
School and in a small group of buildings
facing Padre Faura Street at the northwestern
corner of the hospital grounds.

Throughout the 18th the 148th Infantry
mopped up and consolidated gains,
and on the morning of the 19th the 5th
Cavalry relieved the infantry regiment.
The cavalrymen were to complete the
occupation of the hospital buildings, destroy
the Japanese at the university, and
clear Assumption College, lying west of
the Medical School. The 148th Infantry
relinquished its hold on the Medical
School before the 5th Cavalry completed

--287--

its relief,20
and the cavalry regiment
started its fighting with a new assault
there, moving in behind point-blank
fire from supporting medium tanks.
Troop G, 5th Cavalry, gained access by
dashing along an 8-foot-high wall connecting
the Medical School to the Science
Building. Employing flame throwers
and bazookas as its principal assault
weapons, the troop cleared the Medical
School by dark on the 19th, claiming to
have killed 150 Japanese in the action.21
The cavalry also secured Assumption
College and a few small buildings on
the hospital grounds that the 148th Infantry
had not cleared. The 5th's first
day of action at the hospital-university
strongpoint cost the regiment 1 killed
and 11 wounded.

The 5th Cavalry, leaving elements
behind to complete the mop-up at the
hospital, turned its attention to Rizal
Hall, the largest building on the university
campus. Centrally located and constructed
of reinforced concrete, Rizal
Hall faced south on the north side of
Padre Faura Street. The Japanese had
strongly fortified the building, cutting
slits for machine guns through the portion
of the foundations lying just above
ground, barricading doors and windows,
emplacing machine guns on the flat roof,
and setting up the ubiquitous sandbagged
machine gun nests inside.

After a two-hour tank and tank destroyer
bombardment, a Troop B platoon
entered from the east about 1130
on 20 February. During the shelling
most of the Japanese had taken refuge
in the basement, but reoccupied defenses
on the three upper floors before the
cavalry could gain control of the stairways.
Nevertheless, the platoon cleared
the first floor and secured a foothold on
the second after two hours of fighting.
The small force then stalled, but the
squadron commander declined to send
reinforcements into the building. First,
the interior was so compartmented that
only two or three men could actually be
engaged at any one point; more would
only get in each other's way. Second, he
feared that the Japanese might blow the
building at any moment.

Accordingly, the Troop B platoon
resumed its lonely fight and, without
losing a single man, reached the top floor
about 1700. Half an hour later the
squadron commander's fear of demolitions
proved well founded, for Japanese
hidden in the basement set off a terrific
explosion that tore out the entire center
of Rizal Hall, killing 1 cavalryman and
wounding 4 others. The platoon
withdrew for the night.

A similar experience had been the lot
of Troop G in the Administration Building
at the southwest corner of the university
campus. The troop had cleared
about half its building by 1700, when
explosions on the Japanese-held third
floor forced it out. Action at Rizal Hall,
the Administration Building, and other
structures in the university-hospital area
cost the 5th Cavalry another 9 men killed
and 47 wounded on the 20th.

The regiment took the Administration
Building against little opposition on 21
February, but did not secure Rizal Hall,

--288--

RIZAL HALL

which it left in a shambles, until the
24th. The Japanese garrison at Rizal
Hall alone had numbered at least 250
men, the last 75 of whom committed suicide
during the night of 23-24 February.

The 5th Cavalry cleared other buildings
on the campus during 22 and 23
February, and ran into some new defensive
installations at University Hall, between
Rizal Hall and the Administration
Building. Here Troop E found caves
dug through the walls of the basement
and could not dislodge the Japanese
even with flame throwers. Thereupon
engineers poured a mixture of gasoline
and oil into the various caves and ignited
it. That appeared to take care of the
situation neatly, but through a misunderstanding
of orders Troop E withdrew
for the night. Immediately, Japanese
from buildings to the west reoccupied
University Hall, which the cavalrymen
had to recapture the next morning in a
bitter fight. After that, only a little mopping
up was necessary to complete the
job at the university.

The battle for the hospital-university
strongpoint had occupied the time and
energies of the 148th Infantry and the
5th Cavalry for ten days. Success here
played a major part in clearing the way
for further advances toward Intramuros
and the government buildings, but the
success had been costly. The total American
battle casualties were roughly 60
men killed and 445 wounded, while the
148th Infantry alone suffered 105 non-battle
casualties as the result of sickness,

--289--

heat exhaustion, and combat fatigue.22
The rifle companies of the 2d Battalion,
148th Infantry, which had borne the
brunt of the fighting at the hospital,
were each nearly 75 men understrength
when they came out of the lines on 19
February.23

For the Japanese the battle at the
hospital-university strongpoint marked
the virtual destruction of the Central
Force as an organized fighting unit. The
5th Naval Battalion and the "attached
units" also suffered staggering losses.
The remnants--and a sorry few they
were--of all these Japanese units withdrew
to the government buildings and
Intramuros.

With the capture of the university
and hospital buildings, the New Police
Station and associated structures, the
Manila Hotel, the City Hall, the General
Post Office, and the stadium area, the
battles of the strongpoints were over.
In their wake the 37th Infantry Division
and the 1st Cavalry Division had left,
inevitably and unavoidably, a series of
destroyed and damaged public and private
buildings. But whatever the cost
in blood and buildings, the American
units had successfully concluded the
drive toward Intramuros. The last organized
survivors of the Manila Naval
Defense Force were confined in the
Walled City, the South Port Area, and
the Philippine Commonwealth Government
buildings off the southeastern
corner of Intramuros. The 37th Division
was now ready to begin the reduction
of this last resistance and planned
an assault against Intramuros for 23 February,
the very day that the last of the
university strongpoint buildings fell.

On 13 February, during the attack toward Fort
McKinley from the south, Pfc. Manuel Perez, Jr., of
Company A, 511th Parachute Infantry, won the
Medal of Honor for heroic action in reducing
Japanese pillboxes that had held up the advance of
his company.

6. Further details of the methods of fighting employed
south of the Pasig are to be found in XIV
Corps, Japanese Defense of Cities, pp. 2, 10, 13-14, 19-23.

12. Personal observation of the author. In April
1945 the old wing was repaired and here, ultimately,
were domiciled many male officers of GHQ SWPA,
though one floor was given over to WAC officers
assigned to that headquarters. No attempt was made
to repair the new wing during the war.

22. No reliable figures for the 5th Cavalry's non-battle
casualties can be found in available records,
but it appears that they were in proportion to those
of the 148th Infantry.

23. The three companies had entered the fight with
an average understrength of 43 men, making the net
loss during the battle 32 men per company. The 5th
Cavalry's troops were also understrength, but no
usable figures can be found.